Insomnia and PTSD for most of my life are real bears that I wrestle with every night. A brain neural-therapist (for lack of a better description) said that this kind of sound recording may help. It is not music. When I remember to play the disc, I fall asleep within the first 5-8 minutes. One day I played the disc while cleaning and I was very surprised to hear how much of the recording I never recall hearing before. That's why I know how long it takes to fall asleep.
The pitch frequency measures and describes what a beat sounds like, i.e. does the isochronic beat have a deeper bass sound, or is it high pitched and sharper sounding? The beat waveform frequency describes how many times the beat is repeating per second, i.e. how fast it is beating. You don’t really need to concern yourself about the pitch frequency, as that doesn’t have a direct influence on brainwave entrainment and doesn’t play a part on the measurement on an EEG. I only mentioned it because you were referring to humans not being able to hear below 20Hz. I change the pitch frequency just to suit the mood of the track. For tracks that are to be relaxing, for meditation or sleep, I tend to use a lower pitch frequency so it sounds deeper and more relaxing and I never have that lower than 100Hz. For an energizing, high focus track I might use a more higher pitched 200Hz isochronic tone, because that is sharper sounding and less likely to make you feel sleepy. That’s all you really need to know about the pitch frequency.

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According to a recent study published in the British journal Heart, slow or meditative music is a proven stress buster, so set your dial to a soothing station during your commute. And, if you're stuck in a traffic jam, sneak in this quick exercise: Grab your steering wheel and clench the muscles in your fingers, arms, shoulders and back. Do this until your muscles begin to tremble (about 45 seconds), then release. You'll produce a wave of relief in your upper neck and arms all the way down to your fingers. Just make sure your foot is on the brake when you let go of the wheel! (FYI: pink noise is the newest tool for reducing stress.)

Delta brain state is related to the unconscious or super-conscious mind. Delta waves are the slowest of all five brainwave frequencies. These brain waves are generated in deep sleep and in very deep meditation. In the sleep cycle, the deepest of sleep states is called “Slow Wave Sleep” (SWS). In this phase, the brain begins producing very slow, large Delta waves. The deeper the sleep, the higher the amount of delta waves. This stage plays a vital role in health and well-being, especially because healing and regeneration processes are stimulated in this state. In the Delta state, you do not dream, you are completely unconscious.
Different people have different requirements when it comes to frequency changes in the music and it's quite impossible for us to anticipate them all. We would need to produce so many different variants of all our music productions that it would be impractical to manage and confusing for our customers. For example, if we were to start raising the frequency from theta up to alpha between the 50-60 minute mark of a piece of music, this would be useless to someone who used the music for a guided meditation that was only 45 minutes long. In the early stages of the development of our brainwave entrainment music we had so many different requests from different people that we could only opt for the simplest solution, which is to use a consistent frequency throughout. It might not be the absolute "perfect ideal", but this is still a very effective technique and the feedback we've received on our brainwave entrainment music has always been exceptionally positive.
Beta waves are the most common and most prevalent in the brain. These are the brain waves of alertness, dominating your normal waking state of consciousness. The Beta state relates to “fast” activity with neurons firing abundantly, in rapid succession, with attention focused directly towards cognitive tasks and the outside world. Beta activity is engaged in focused mental activity, problem solving, judgment and decision making. New ideas and solutions to problems flash like lightning into your mind.
For example, exercise and perusing a goal very ambitiously are both types of stress, except they ultimately benefit the body. Areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, amygdala and prefrontal cortex can pick up on positive stressful experiences and cause “stress-induced structural remodeling” of the brain, which means you experience alterations in behavioral and physiological responses to these positive events. The result is that in the future you’re better able to handle similar situations because you learn from them, associate them with a reward and stop perceiving them as threatening.
Different people have different requirements when it comes to frequency changes in the music and it's quite impossible for us to anticipate them all. We would need to produce so many different variants of all our music productions that it would be impractical to manage and confusing for our customers. For example, if we were to start raising the frequency from theta up to alpha between the 50-60 minute mark of a piece of music, this would be useless to someone who used the music for a guided meditation that was only 45 minutes long. In the early stages of the development of our brainwave entrainment music we had so many different requests from different people that we could only opt for the simplest solution, which is to use a consistent frequency throughout. It might not be the absolute "perfect ideal", but this is still a very effective technique and the feedback we've received on our brainwave entrainment music has always been exceptionally positive.
Thanks Lorita. There hasn’t been any isochronic tones research that I’m aware of, for anti-aging, fat loss or attracting people, or any significant anecdotal feedback. You could combine positive affirmations or hypnosis scripts with isochronic tones to try and change habits and that could help with fat loss or build confidence to attract people. But it would be the affirmations and hypnosis doing most of the work, the isochronic tones would just be used to help relax the listener and put them in a more suggestible state. I don’t believe isochronic tones can affect those things, without being used in combination with some kind of vocal mental programming.
Entrainment is like priming the pump of meditation. It doesn’t “cause” meditation any more than pouring that little bit of water into the pump initially “causes” water to appear in the well. The water was already there. The conditions for the pump to do its job just needed to be set up. What entrainment does is to create the conditions and the internal environment typically associated with meditation. You could get to that point without entrainment, certainly, but the entrainment allows you to get there quicker, more consistently, and to remain there for longer periods of time than you would ordinarily be capable of doing on your own.
Binaural meditation music is VERY popular these days, and you might have noticed that some of the companies that sell binaural music products make rather spectacular claims about the benefits of brainwave entrainment technology. Some declare that they can make you “meditate like a zen monk at the touch of a button”, or that you will “instantly meditate like the greatest gurus”. While it is true that binaural meditation music is extremely powerful, and that it can genuinely improve the quality of your life, it is not a miracle solution or a spiritual “get rich quick” scheme. Like all things in life, positive and lasting results will still take just a little time and effort on your part. Binaural meditation music just accelerates and deepens to process.
When the track is over you can continue to meditate without the help of the entrainment track. When you are ready to get up, thank your Higher Self for the experience and remove your blindfold, keeping your eyes closed. Stay seated with your eyes closed for a few moments, then slowly open them and take a moment to let your eyes adjust to your environment’s light.
Participants in the included studies were children and adults, either healthy or with conditions such as learning disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, migraine, stress, anxiety and myofascial pain. Interventions included single, alternating, ascending or descending frequencies of photic or auditory stimulation or audiovisual entrainment selected either by the participant or by the investigator. Nearly half the studies used single sessions and the rest used multiple sessions ranging from nine to 100. Length of session varied from 0.5 seconds to 60 minutes. Frequency of session varied from twice daily to weekly. Outcomes reported in the review included cognition (including verbal skills, performance skills, attention, memory and overall intelligence/achievement), short- and long-term stress, pain, headache/migraine, mood, behavioural problems and premenstrual syndrome (PMS).
Alpha (12hz – 8hz) – Awake, but deeply relaxed. Simply closing your eyes will produce alpha brainwaves. This category is associated with daydreaming, visualization, imagination, light meditation. Brainwave expert Anna Wise called the alpha range the bridge between beta and theta. (More information can be found in Wise’ book The High-Performance Mind)
Isochronic tones are basically just a single tone with the volume being turned on and off at regular intervals. When you apply the same effects to music or a noise, it’s usually referred to as amplitude entrainment effects (in Mind Workstation anyway). When you apply the on/off effect to music or noise it’s usually done by targeting a specific frequency range in the sound and only turning that part on/off, leaving the rest of the music/noise untouched. What that does is allow parts of the music/noise to play without being distorted/interrupted, making it sound more pleasant to listen to. It produces a kind of fluttering sound as I like to call it and you can adjust the level of intensity.
Since it’s humble beginnings, the science of brainwave entrainment has evolved to be one of the most potent and powerful ways to unlock the full potential of the human mind. Our audios have been created by brainwave entrainment engineer, Ashton Aiden, and his years of research, expertise, personal experience, and creativity. We are confident that the audios we offer on this site are of the best quality you will ever find, anywhere.
Today, EEG machines are used for diagnosing epilepsy and sleep disorders, for determining dosages for anesthesia, and measuring the brain activity of people in comas or suffering from brain trauma. EEG machines also continue to play a role in researching and understanding brainwave entrainment and developing new and better methods for delivering the benefits of this form of brainwave modification.

While a practical understanding of brainwaves has been around for as long as people have been singing, chanting, and drumming, a scientific view of the electrical activity inside the human brain was not published until 1924 when German psychiatrist Hans Berger developed a machine for sensing and recording activity in the brain by attaching small electrical sensors to the scalp of his patients and recording the resulting electrical activity. Berger’s inventions and discoveries were built upon the earlier work of Richard Caton who published animal studies on brainwave oscillations in 1875.

“Like the pulses of vibration that produce sound on a guitar string, your brain also creates pulses of vibrations. These vibrations are electrical impulses,” continues Naik. “Their activity can be measured by using an EEG (electroencephalogram), which measures the frequency of these pulses [which is measured in Hertz]. Your brain actually has a predominant frequency at which it operates in any given moment; this can be associated with your state of mind.”

People who meditate regularly enjoy many benefits such as increased sense of well being, happiness, contentment, and far less anxiety that many other people. Some believe that this is due to both hemispheres of the brain being in sync with each other, which meditative practice can provide. Therefore, a goal of using technology to entrain the brain and align the frequencies of the brain hemispheres has become a very interesting avenue of science and experimentation.

Gamma waves are the fastest brainwave frequency range. Gamma brain waves are believed to link and process information from all other parts of the brain. A high amount of gamma wave activity in the brain is associated with intelligence, compassion, focus and feelings of happiness. High levels of gamma brain waves have also been linked to improved memory and an increased sensitivity to sensory input. Low amounts of gamma brainwave activity have been linked to learning difficulties, poor memory and impaired mental processing.

Joseph Kao, creator of Profound Releasing, Profound Renewal, and Sound Asleep, is a hypnotherapist and a solution-focused therapist with a private practice in Cambridge, UK. Joe was the co-developer of an acclaimed course on conversational hypnosis, and he regularly teaches hypnotherapy and psychotherapy to other therapists. He has also been the head scriptwriter for over 800 professional hypnotherapy recordings. Joe was drawn to the world of philosophy, meditation, and brainwave entrainment technology from an early age, and he’s had a daily meditation practice since 1998.

Stress affects your whole body, so find a pick-me-up for each of your senses. Turning on a favorite tune uses your sense of hearing for a science-backed burst of good feeling, and using aromatherapy uses your sense of smell to relax you. “Oils like lavender and lemon reduce stress,” Dr. Serani says. “Also, don’t forget that your sense of smell is the most nostalgic of all your senses,” so if you have a scent that reminds you of comfort, keep it on hand to sniff when you’re freaking out. Your sense of touch can be employed by stroking a “talisman”—a favorite or sentimental item—or even an “intention stick,” which you can hold like a wand to feel more in control. Chew gum to use your sense of taste to curb stress (scientists think it’s the lasting flavor, not just the act of chewing itself, that makes gum such a great stress reliever). Besides using your mind’s eye to visualize a happy place, you can use your sense of sight to look at calming images—cat videos on the Internet have actually been scientifically proven to lower stress.

This depends on how ready your brain is to absorb the impact of the tones and how responsive it is. Most people experience a feeling of relaxation and calm right from the first session. The degree to which you feel these hinges on how well your brain reacts. Use it over a few days and you can experience unmistakable signs of stress reduction and improved clarity of mind. After a while, when you brain gets trained in allowing better communication between the right and left hemispheres, you will sense that the feeling of mental clarity and calm carry forward even hours after a session.
You’ve heard me talk before about how sound can make a difference to sleep. Patients often tell me that they fall asleep to relaxing music, they seem to find it really helps them let go of active thoughts and quiet their mind—which, like yours probably does, tends to race from one thing to the next all day long (aka I can’t turn off my brain syndrome).

♥ ← This set of tones with the bird calls from Aotearoa is keeping me awake while I finish an essay I've been working on for the past four days. Focus beats + sounds I associate with morning = wakefulness. Still craving the bed, but at least I'm not falling asleep at my desk. Thanks myNoise, without you I'd probably be listening to music and distracted.

They are not beyond what is “normal” but for most of us they are outside of what is “typical”. Whether we consciously seek them or not, somewhere in the back of our minds we hold beliefs that because meditation and brainwave entrainment are beyond our usual set of experiences, then the evidence that they are having some sort of effect on us must also be outside of our normal range of experiences.

Entrainment is a principle of physics which appears in biology, chemistry, neurology, medicine, astronomy etc. It is defined as the synchronization of two or more rhythmic cycles. In the seventeenth century, Dutch scientist Christian Huygens found out that by placing two unsynchronized clocks side by side on a wall, they would slowly synchronize to each other in a very accurate way. The clocks were the first example of spontaneous synchronization, a phenomenon found throughout nature from cells to the Solar System.

Thanks to e-mail, cell phones, and BlackBerrys, it seems like your job never ends. The increasingly blurry boundaries between work and home life leave us with less downtime than ever before (and in some cases, no downtime!). Advances in technology are a leading source of chronic stress, putting many of us in a constant state of alert. Not to mention the effect it has on family ties. A recent study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family found a link between the use of cell phones and pagers at home and increased stress, which spills over into family life. To make technology work for you, screen calls with caller ID or, better yet, limit your cell phone and e-mail use to working hours only. Can't kick the BlackBerry habit? Set a regular time you'll check it in the evening (say, after dinner), so you're not constantly disrupting home life to keep tabs on work. (The one exception: using your device to breathe with this anxiety-reducing GIF.)

Respectfully ask others to change their behavior. And be willing to do the same. Small problems often create larger ones if they aren't resolved. If you're tired of being the target of a friend's jokes at parties, ask him or her to leave you out of the comedy routine. In return, be willing to enjoy his or her other jokes and thank him or her for humoring you.

Maya Mendoza is a published author of 3 personal development books. She has run an NLP / EFT Practice for 29 years helping clients transform problems into personal power. Maya is also a accomplished copywriter and well known Digital Marketing & Social Social Media Strategist - Specializing in Google+ for business. She was named "best marketing consultant" in Glasgow, UK in 2013.

So, there’s the deep stuff here, and then there’s the gamma stuff, too. There’s a little bit of 80 Hz, but it’s primarily a 40-Hz gamma track, gamma frequencies that are combined with a pulse, on and off, throughout the recording. I went to some lengths to make this as rich and potent as I could, whilst blending it into the sound of the music. There are these really rich, kind of cat-purr-like vibrations that come through at times, combined with the lulling, deeply relaxing theta brain waves.
At Gaia Meditation, most of audio programs including free relaxation music, free sleep music, free meditation music etc. use the technology of brainwave entrainment (or “brainwave synchronization”) with powerful binaural beats and isochronic tones. Our audio tracks utilize pure and precisely tuned sound frequencies which will drive your brain activity (consciousness) into your desired state: Gamma, Beta, Alpha, Theta or Delta.
Binaural beats are the playing of two sine waves of close, but not the same, frequency into different earpieces of a set of headphones. The "beat" is heard as the brain tries to process them as a distinct sound, while taking into account the constructive/destructive interference. It is said to migrate brain waves to be closer to that frequency, like a sort of biological resonance, which is true. Of course the same can be said for listening to relaxing music help you relax, up tempo music to help you feel energetic, etc...
“One of the best ways to explain how brainwave entrainment works is by observing the effect of a tuning fork on a guitar string,” says Naik. “Hit a tuning fork tuned to a particular sound frequency, such as the note C, and hold it close to the strings of a guitar. You will notice that the C string on the guitar starts to vibrate because it has entrained on to the same frequency of the tuning fork.”

All brainwave frequencies are useful and beneficial at certain times – there is no brainwave that is intrinsically better than another. However, by deliberately choosing to attain a particular brainwave state, a corresponding mental state can be brought about at the same time. For example, a working person who has been in an overly alert beta brainwave pattern for many hours can quickly shift their mind and body into a relaxed state by listening to a few minutes of brainwave entrainment music for inducing alpha or theta brainwaves.

This extremely popular app features over 90 tones and music to help you achieve your desired state of mind. While other apps focus on sleep, memory and meditation, this app also includes programs for increasing psychic abilities, contacting spirit guides, and enhancing yoga. This subscription-based application is right for you if you’re looking for an experience specifically designed for your health, spiritual and emotional desires.
They came to the table with the idea that the entrainment track would “cause” them to be in meditation, which it doesn’t. Or they thought that having the specific brainwaves the entrainment program promotes would “cause” them to be in meditation. It doesn’t. If you really understand the principles above, you’ll understand why. If you don’t grasp why yet, read these principles again and consider what they really mean. The answer is there.
That is generally where the science ends and the pseudoscience begins. A number of companies and individuals have then extrapolated from the phenomenon of entrainment to claim that altering the brain waves changes the actual functioning of the brain. There is no theoretical or empirical basis for this, however. Entrainment is a temporary effect on the synchronization of neuronal firing – it does not improve or increase brain functioning, it does not change the hardwiring, nor does it cure any neurological disorder. There is no compelling evidence for any effect beyond the period of entrainment itself.
In physics, entrainment is the process of two oscillating systems coming to assume the same periodic rhythm, such as is observed when two clocks slowly synchronize their ticking and tick together in harmony after some time. Pendulums also achieve this same synchronicity when swinging in close proximity to one another, a phenomenon first observed and written about in 1665 by Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch scientist.
American Heart Association: "Four Ways to Deal With Stress."; PubMed Central: "Psychosocial and Psychophysiological Effects of Human-Animal Interactions: The Possible Role of Oxytocin."; NIH News in Health: "Can Pets Keep You Healthy?"; Cleveland Clinic: "Want a Healthy Heart? Laugh More!"; HelpGuide.org: "Laughter Is the Best Medicine."; Association for Psychological Science: "Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal; Displays Affect Neuroendocrine; Levels and Risk Tolerance."; Harvard Business School: "Power Posing: Fake It Until you Make It."; IZA.org: "The Effect of Sexual Activity on Wages."
You are already far beyond the need for using an entrainment product as a meditation aid. Those who sincerely believe this to be the case would not have come searching for a meditation site such as Project Meditation to help them learn and practice meditation and brainwave entrainment. They would probably not even bother with using an entrainment aid; hence this entire discussion would be irrelevant to them. The fact that you are here, reading this, seeking to benefit from incorporating meditation and brainwave entrainment to aid in your existing meditation practice suggests you are not one of these folks whose development is so advanced that entrainment is of no use to you.
Another common misconception is that entrainment is going to force your brain into doing something beyond its native capabilities, or at least beyond what it is accustomed to doing. This mistaken belief is often the root that leads to comments like, “When I meditate with LifeFlow my face gets flushed (or my hair vibrates or I develop x-ray vision, or any of the other things we come across). If I meditate without LifeFlow the face flushing doesn’t happen. LifeFlow must be causing it.”
It may be that you had the volume too loud, but I would expect you to hear the effects of that straight after you’ve stopped listening, not on a day you haven’t used them. It might be something similar to muscle memory, where you suddenly remembered the sound and sensations it gives you as if you were hearing it again. I don’t know how long you’ve been using this type of thing for, but maybe it’s something that will settle down and disappear once you become more accustomed to the sound.
Our state of mind, mood, energy level, motivation, and overall well-being all emerge out of the electrical energy produced by our brains. Do you want more control of your moods and thoughts every day? If so, brainwave entrainment is a method which greatly assists many people in finding greater relaxation, better moods, and less anxiety in a way similar to how music uplifts and rejuvenates us, and brainwave entrainment techniques are available embedded into musical arrangements, giving you the benefits of both modalities.
Other entrainment methods sometimes used include autopan modulation that moves sound in an 180º arc to create a desired tone. Harmonic box entrainment, invented by James Mann, uses a layering of binaural and monaural tones that alternate between ears, requiring headphones. Sound modulation and filtering, amplitude modulation, and pitch panning use diverse sounds to create rhythmic pulses matched to the desired brainwave frequency.
When tuning instruments that can produce sustained tones, beats can be readily recognized. Tuning two tones to a unison will present a peculiar effect: when the two tones are close in pitch but not identical, the difference in frequency generates the beating. The volume varies like in a tremolo as the sounds alternately interfere constructively and destructively. As the two tones gradually approach unison, the beating slows down and may become so slow as to be imperceptible. As the two tones get further apart, their beat frequency starts to approach the range of human pitch perception[1], the beating starts to sound like a note, and a combination tone is produced. This combination tone can also be referred to as a missing fundamental, as the beat frequency of any two tones is equivalent to the frequency of their implied fundamental frequency.
Move-Thru-It Strategy: to support optimum recovery rates, use 6-8 pumps or 3-4 droppers. Repeat every 1-3 hours for a day or two (with a good night's sleep). The idea here is a persistent frequency. Once you have achieved initial results, you can switch to more conventional usage patterns such as 3-4 times a day. For example: Kick-Ass Immune, Get Over It
It might surprise you to learn that biological stress is a fairly recent discovery. It wasn't until the late 1950s that endocrinologist Hans Selye first identified and documented stress. Symptoms of stress existed long before Selye, but his discoveries led to new research that has helped millions cope with stress. We’ve compiled a list of the top 10 ways to relieve stress.
♥ I found the Binaural Beat Machine to be my #1 focus tool. I have ADD/ADHD and am too easily distracted when I really want to focus. I turn on the binaural beats using the 16b preset for focus and turn down the volume so it's just barely present to my ear. I couple it with some classical music and am able to focus on what I want for extended periods. This literally has changed my life. Thank you!!
Your brainwave activity during sleep is largely distinct from your brain activity when you’re awake. (REM sleep is one exception to this—during REM, your brain is active in ways very much like when you’re awake.) During non-REM sleep, the slower, lower frequency theta and delta waves dominate, compared to the alpha and beta waves that are prominent when you’re alert and active.
, that is, the average of the two frequencies. It can be noted that every second burst in the modulation pattern is inverted. Each peak is replaced by a trough and vice versa. However, because the human ear is not sensitive to the phase of a sound, only its amplitude or intensity, only the magnitude of the envelope is heard. Therefore, subjectively, the frequency of the envelope seems to have twice the frequency of the modulating cosine, which means the audible beat frequency is:[5]
That all said, we are all different and have our own different limits. So I generally advise that you just be aware of how you are feeling, and if you feel like you are getting a bit fatigued from it, it’s probably time to stop or at least take a break. When listening over long extended periods, I recommend that you keep yourself well-hydrated. Your brain needs a good supply of water to function well, especially if you are studying hard and increasing your brainwave electrical activity.
The aim of this study is to identify tendencies in the effectiveness of relaxing audio stimuli that could be verified through further focused experiments. A series of brainwave entrainment (BWE) techniques for inducing relaxation will be presented consisting of different binaural phenomena (BP). The BP will derive from the binaural sine wave beat, widely acknowledged in rhythmic BWE... [Show full abstract]

Alpha: Alpha brainwave patterns are associated with a state of wakeful relaxation. Slower and lower in frequency (between 9-14 hertz), alpha waves are dominant when we’re calm and relaxed, but still alert. Alpha waves are associated with states of meditation (your yoga class probably puts you in an alpha state), and also with our ability to be creative.

In 1984 medical researcher Dr. Gene W. Brockopp published a paper making several conclusions of audio and visual entrainment (AVE). Such conclusions were that hemispheric synchronization caused by AVE is related to increased intellectual functioning, practiced use of AVE overtime leads to a cumulative effect, and AVE may result in the recovery of early childhood experiences.